Vending our way.

• Author: Wallace, Eric

When I was a kid, I discovered the joys (and profits) of becoming a street vendor. One entrepreneurial summer, I made almost a million selling fruit (well, closer to $14.63, after expenses).

Without preamble or permit, I had set up a small, rickety stand, shrewdly picking a spot near a busy bus stop.

I trotted up the road to a commercial fruit store, and - with allowance for the size of my allowance-bought the best fruit there was, marked it up a nickel or so per apple, a penny or two per plum, and sold it with amazing rapidity.

My customers never thought to compare my prices with the place up the road. So life on the street was like the fruit. Sweet.

Little did I know then that, as a street seller, I was part of an ancient and vendorable tradition.

Eons ago, canny cavemen on corners started it all by peddling spelunking supplies and a period favorite, club sandwiches.

The ancient Egyptians, inventors of the original pyramid scheme, sold jewelry in Sphinx Street. "Wanta buy a scarab from an Arab?" they'd cry, shaded by their sun-filtered camels. (In Egypt, few kids were allowed to sell: Their mummies were too uptight.)

An early Greek built a street-vendor empire selling classic wines, and he became known as Alexander the Grape.

Julius Caesar's legions, via streets they themselves had built, peddled things Latin to the Gauls and Brits. Top sellers included caesar salads and toga partywear. The Roman sales carts were painted an invitingly bright color called orange julius.

As every schoolkid knows, Caesar summed it up succinctly - "Veni, vedi, vendit." ("I came, I saw, I vended.")

During the Renaissance, Venetians vended goods from gondolas floating at canal corners. Very popular were marco polo shirts and ceramic christopher colombusts. Every day, some item was sure to make a huge splash.

It was in Italy, in fact, where shortage of prime space produced the first bit of lethal competition between street vendors and gave us the term "vendetta."

In the 17th century, the French invented a brown bag for carrying street purchases, the cul de sack, and a handy smaller container called a bag-ette.

Pretty laid back, French vendors also introduced the self-service street market, which economists promptly dubbed the lazy fair.

Our own country, from its very beginnings, has been a hot melting pot of street vendorism.

Tax consequences...